


Rabbit of Negative Euphoria, or Not a Happy Bunny

by zaftig_darling



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Jack, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Frottage, Halloween Costumes, M/M, Oral Sex, Parse is not a nice person, cannon typical alcohol use, drunken baking, explicit description of a prior sexual encounter, fake professional hockey players dressed as real professional baseball players, wishful thinking in regards to Major League Baseball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5421428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaftig_darling/pseuds/zaftig_darling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack reacts to the photo of Bittle in his Puck Bunny costume for Halloween 2016.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Should Probably Say That I'm Unsure Why I'm Running Away From the One I Love

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since Ngozi posted [this 2016 Halloween picture](http://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com/post/133574802822) I have been writing Check, Please! fic in my head. 
> 
> I sat down to write it out, and this rather more angsty version of events came out of my fingers.
> 
> This is the first non-legal writing I have done in several years, and it has not been beta read. (Please let me know if you see any glaring errors.) It's the first fanfic I've written since 2009. Please forgive me if I'm rusty.
> 
> The title is shamelessly stolen from John Finnemore's Cabin Pressure.
> 
> I am in no way associated with the owner or creator of Check, Please! No copyright infringement is intended. The work is written as a tribute only. Many thanks to Ngozi for letting us play in her sandbox.

Halloween Night 2016 – 8:00 PM – Detroit, Michigan

 

Jack is in the first class check-in line at the Delta ticket counter in Detroit when the Halloween party photo comes through on the Samwell team’s group chat.  He’s exhausted from last night’s heartbreaking loss to the Wings, followed by an unbelievably dull charity event this morning.   The rest of the Falconers returned to Rhode Island this afternoon, but the fundraiser for disadvantaged Detroit youth ran unexpectedly long and Jack missed the team’s flight back to Providence.       

 A family of five is in front of him, checking in a mountain of Louis Vuitton luggage to Honolulu, so he has time to look at his phone when the “team chat” notification dings.

He stares in stunned silence at the photo of Bitty, cradled in Holster’s arms, wearing nothing but a tiny rabbit costume.  His mouth goes dry, his heart pounds in his chest and he feels a panic attack coming on. 

He has a growing realization that he has not only made an enormous mistake, but that the time to correct it may have just run out. 

His phone pings again with a response to the group from Shitty – “dear god.  Swawesome.  #WishIWereThere.”

Jack spends a few more seconds panicking in motionless, stony-faced silence and then manages to type out a response of his own.  “Haha.  Nice.” 

“I can help you now,” the Delta agent says, her tired face splitting into a huge smile as she recognizes him.  “Nice game, last night, Mr. Zimmermann,” she says, “but it’s hard to stop our Red Wings at home.” 

Jack pastes on his ‘talking to sincere hockey fans’ smile and replies, “They fought hard and won fair and square.  I love to play a great game against great opponents.”  He hopes he doesn’t sound too much like a hockey robot.  She smiles even more radiantly, which makes him hopeful he’s getting better at the whole, ‘interacting with the public’ part of his job. 

She is clicking buttons as she looks at his reservation information when he hears himself ask her, “uh – is there any chance you could get me on a flight to Boston instead of Providence tonight?” 

This question takes him by complete surprise.  Sometimes his mouth does things without talking to his brain first. 

She doesn’t hesitate for more than a few seconds, and returns to tapping at her keyboard.  “Actually, you’re in luck.  There’s a flight to Boston leaving in 35 minutes.  Nonstop.  You’d be there by 10:00 PM.  There’s a fee to change the tick-“

“No problem!” Jack cuts her off.  “If you could get me on that flight, that’s perfect.” 

She begins typing even faster, efficiently prints out a boarding pass and tags his suitcase and sends it through the wall with the pile of Louis Vuitton headed to Hawaii.  “Hurry if you want to make it to the gate on time!” she calls cheerfully as he sprints for the expedited security line. 

After a lightning fast stop at a gift shop inside the terminal, he gets to the gate with three minutes to spare, and sinks into his seat at the front of the plane, the last one to board.  He closes his eyes and goes through his deep breathing exercises and tries hard not to think about Bitty’s Halloween costume or what it might mean.  He tries hard not to think about Bitty’s face, three weeks ago, when he made his huge mistake.  Huge.

 

_Three weeks earlier_

 

_7:00 PM – Las Vegas, Nevada / 10:00 PM Samwell, Massachusetts_

 

_Bitty is staring at him through their Skype connection, looking like Jack has actually physically slapped him._

_“What do you mean, Jack?” Bitty demands, and even through the laptop screen Jack can see tears welling up in Bitty’s eyes._

_“I mean…I think you should feel like you can see other people right now.”  Jack says, making his voice as even and toneless as he can.   “I don’t want you to feel smothered by me.  It’s your senior year.  We only get to see each other every few weeks.  I don’t want you to throw away your last year of college, always waiting for me to come back from being on the road or training so much I don’t have time to see you.”_

_“I don’t want anybody else, Jack!” Bitty practically shouts at the screen, his adorable face full of righteous indignation. “I have the person I want, and that person is you.  For two years I thought I was hopelessly in love with a straight boy, and then…and then…”  Bitty stops talking altogether and turns his head away from the camera.  Jack can see he is pressing his fists to the side of his face to keep the tears from coming._

_Bitty takes a deep breath and looks back at Jack through the camera.  “The last year has been the best year of my entire life, Jack.  OF MY ENTIRE LIFE.  I have everything I EVER wanted.  I’m playing on an incredible hockey team.  I live in a house with my best friends and an amazing oven so I can bake all the time, and I have…”  Bitty stops again and hiccups quietly, “well, I THOUGHT I HAD and I hope I still HAVE, an amazing boyfriend who loves me and who just happens to play for the NHL.  I can’t imagine what I would want to change about any of those things, Jack.”_

_“But I can’t be your boyfriend in public, Bitty.  I just…I think you deserve the chance to be free to be with someone else, if you wanted.  Someone who doesn’t have to hide in the closet.  Someone who isn’t the first person you ever-“._

_“STOP,” Bitty snaps. “If I have to choose between keeping our relationship in the closet for a while and being able to date someone else openly, I choose YOU and YOUR CLOSET, Jack.  And I don’t care if your first person I ever-“_

_“How do you know you don’t want to sleep with other people if you’ve never slept with other people, Bitty?”_

_“Where is this even coming from?” Bitty demands.  “You weren’t concerned about my…my…my inexperience two weekends ago when we didn’t even put on any clothes for a day and a half.  I made you pancakes in my birthday suit, Jack Laurent Zimmermann!  Don’t tell me that’s not romantic AND dangerous AND experimental.”_

_“That’s not…that’s not what I mean, I don’t think,” Jack tries to explain and he knows he’s putting this the wrong way.  “Parse just said-“_

_“Parse?”  Bitty interrupts him.  “PARSE JUST SAID???  This is PARSE’S idea?  So…so so so what?”  Bitty is so angry he trips over the words.  “You and I have been together since your graduation and everything is all biscuits and gravy, and then you play the Aces last night and you see Parse for what you told me was ‘just a friendly late night dinner to put hostilities to rest’ and NOW YOU ARE TELLING ME YOU WANT TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE?”_

_“No,” Jack tries to clarify.  “I don’t want to date other people.  I just don’t want you to feel like you can’t date other people because I don’t want you to feel like-“_

_“Do you want to sleep with Parse, is that what this is about?” Bitty is not listening.  Bitty is still stuck on the part where Jack had dinner with his super-secret-ex-boyfriend, who is also NHL superstar Kent Parson, who apparently advised Jack to break up with his secret baking boyfriend._

_Jack puts his head in his hands and says, “I’ve already slept with Parse and I don’t-“_

_Bitty’s head snaps forward at this and he stops making any effort to push back the tears.  “You slept with Parse?”_

_“No!” Jack protests.  “I mean, yes, I have slept with Parse.  Before.  Frequently.  Not recently.”_

_“I’m hanging up now,” Bitty says, raising his hand as if to close the laptop._

_“Wait!” Jack snaps.  “That came out wrong.  I don’t want to sleep with Parse again.  I want you to be free-“_

_“You want me to be free so you can sleep with someone else?  You want, what?  You want to be able to run around with all the puck bunnies?  You miss girls?  Was Parse telling you about all of the puck bunnies who aren’t sucking your-”_

_“Bitty, please, this is all wrong.  No, I don’t want the puck bunnies.  I don’t miss girls. That’s the point – I know I don’t miss anything because I’ve-”_

_“I can’t talk to you anymore right now,” Bitty’s face is red and blotchy, and his accent is extremely pronounced, like he’s too tired to remember he’s in Massachusetts and not Madison.  “You should call me when you’re done banging Parse or the bunnies or Miss Canada or whoever it is that you want to scratch an itch you think I don’t have the appropriate itch scratching fingers to take care of and maybe we’ll have something to talk about – or maybe we won’t.”_

_The screen goes black and Jack stares at it sadly.  He’s never been good at expressing his feelings and now he’s sure that Bitty doesn’t understand that Jack just wants Bitty to be sure of his feelings.  One thing he knows for sure – he is an idiot for listening to Parse._

 

Halloween Night 2016 – 10:30 PM – Boston, Massachusetts

 

            In Boston, Jack rents a car from the ENTERPRISE counter and discovers his checked luggage hasn’t arrived.  No doubt it’s on a flight to Honolulu, he thinks ruefully.  At least he sent his gear bag back to Providence with the rest of the team, thank God.  His phone dings, and he looks down to see he has a text message from Lardo.  He opens it to find another photograph – this time a close up of Bitty’s gorgeous backside and bunny tail. 

Another text comes in, from Lardo again, with an ominous statement.  “There are two diving team bros at this party who are obviously looking to make a rabbit sandwich. You sure you want to be apart from him this way?” 

Jack grimaces as he speeds away from the airport.

            Half an hour later he pulls up in front of the Haus and he can’t find any place to park because, apparently, half of Massachusetts has descended upon fraternity row this Halloween night.  Panic rises a bit within him as he realizes how very many people he is going to have to wade through to find Bitty, and he’s kicking himself for not taking a taxi from the airport instead.  Ultimately he drives the rental onto the lawn adjacent to the Haus’ driveway.  He’ll pay to have it pulled out of the tow lot tomorrow morning if necessary. 

            Before he loses his nerve, he opens the bag from the Detroit Airport gift shop, and pulls out a blue and orange Detroit Tigers baseball cap and matching jersey.  He takes his wrinkled suit coat off and throws it in the back seat and puts the jersey on over his shirt, and then he carefully places the baseball cap on his head. 

It’s a Halloween party and he’s not showing up without a costume.  Admittedly, it’s not a great costume, but it’s something.

            The front lawn and porch are full of people in various states of Halloween dress and undress.  As he opens the front door he stumbles into a shark and a very scantily clad mermaid groping one another against the wall.  He does a double take and realizes that it’s Chowder and his girlfriend. 

“Maybe you ought to take that up to your room, eh?” he chirps.  Chowders’ eyes grow huge and he stammers, “uh…yeah…sure, Jack.  Are you, um…” he trails off, unsure and his eyes unfocused. 

“Where’s Bitty?” Jack asks. 

“The last time we saw him he was in the kitchen, but I don’t know if he wants to see you,” Caitlin says, and even through her intoxication Jack can see anger flash in her eyes. Damn - apparently Lardo isn’t the only person in the Haus who knows how Bitty’s been wronged.  

He meets her eyes and looks away, feeling ashamed.  But he didn’t come here to defend himself to anyone but Bitty, and if he has to pull him out of a threesome with the swim team to do that, he will. 

He’s relieved when he finds Bitty in the kitchen, pulling a tray of pumpkin shaped sugar cookies out of the oven.  He’s bending over to accomplish this, and all Jack can see is his perfect ass topped with the fluffy bunny tail of his costume.  Holster and Ransom, along with several people Jack doesn’t recognize, including a few broad shouldered dudes dressed like Thor and Loki - presumably from the dive team - are leaning against the counter, where Bitty has lined up what appear to be cookie frosting stations. 

“Listen, y’all,” Bitty drawls drunkenly, “y’all’ve got to do a better job on the icing-to-sprinkle ratio on this batch, because that last batch was disgracef-” 

Bitty stops talking as he realizes Jack is standing right behind him.    

Bitty looks even more like a walking wet dream in person than he did in the photographs earlier this evening.  Jack has never been more turned on by anyone in a rabbit costume before.

After a short, uncomfortable silence, Jack just says, “Bitty.” 

Surprise changes to a look of defiant determination as Bitty looks up at him.  “I don’t know that there’s anybody here by that name tonight, Mr.-” Bitty walks around to peer at the name emblazoned on the back of Jack’s new Detroit Tigers baseball jersey, “Verlander.”  Bitty raises his eyebrows at this, his words dripping like honey from his mouth like some sort of scantily-clad, bunny-costumed Scarlett O’Hara. 

What Jack does next is unfair, and he knows it. But he does it anyway. He’s not having this conversation in front of an audience.

“Bittle,” Jack says forcefully, and it’s his Captain’s voice that comes out of his mouth. _Bitty-his-secret-boyfriend_ may not be talking to him, but two years of answering to his Captain are not lost on _Bittle-his-teammate_.

Bitty flares his nostrils in frustration and turns gracefully to place the cookie tray down on the counter. “Y’all go on and frost these pumpkins anyway you like, m’kay? I’ll be back in just a few shakes of my tail,” he drawls, executing a hip bump that shakes the bunny tail attached to his ass in a very intriguing way.

He leaves the kitchen and heads up the stairs without turning to look at Jack. Jack follows him without a word, embarrassed at how mesmerized he is by the sway of Bitty’s hips.

Bitty produces the key to his room from inside the top of one of his boots and walks into his bedroom, leaving the door open. Jack shuts and locks the door behind him.

“Bitty,” Jack says, and says it again, more softly. “Bitty.” His eyes are wide and sincere and this tone of voice has reliably gotten him laid in this very bedroom on multiple occasions.

Bittle draws himself up as tall and as regally as a petite intoxicated boy in a bunny costume could possibly hope for. “I told you,” his words slur a bit. “Nobody here named Bitty tonight, mister baseball man.” He looks up to meet Jack’s gaze defiantly.  

For a moment Jack refuses to play along with this ruse, but then he sighs, giving in.  “Well,” he says, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “who might you be?”

“Oh, let’s see, who might I be?” Bitty’s voice is soaked with sarcasm now, his accent even deeper, sharper and sweeter.  “I thought you’d recognize me, but perhaps you’ve forgotten.  Puck,” he says, popping the “k” sound and raising his palms and pushing them against Jack’s chest, as if to shove him away.  “Puck Bunny.  Maybe you’ve forgotten about me already. From what I hear, my fellow bunnies and I spend a lot of time on our knees sucking Jack Zimmermann’s dick.” 

Jack reaches up and gently grabs Bittle’s wrists, pulling him closer. “It’s unfortunate that Bitty’s not here, because I owe him a huge apology, and he should know that I’m not interested in any puck bunnies.” Jack slides his hands down and grips Bitty’s ass possessively. “Although admittedly, you seem to have some especially fine assets, for a bunny,” he whispers into his ear, running his lips along the curve of Bittle’s ear and catching his ear lobe between his teeth in precisely the way he knows Bittle likes.

“I think that Bitty would be surprised to learn that the 2016 World Series MVP owes him an apology,” Bitty whispers, reluctantly giving in to Jack’s embrace and sliding his arms up around Jack’s neck, but he pulls away from the kiss. He turns his head to rest his forehead on Jack’s shoulder, bumping Jack in the face with his rabbit ears in the process.

Jack takes a step backwards and sits down solidly on the bed, pulling Bitty into his lap. Bitty is making a valiant effort to avoid meeting his eyes, so Jack places both palms on his face and says, “Please. Will you look at me?”

Bitty shakes his head, sadly, ears flopping over his face.

“Will you listen to me?” Bitty nods, but doesn’t meet his gaze.

“So…I did this incredibly stupid thing a few weeks ago,” Jack begins.

Bitty does look up at him now, the expression on his face unreadable. He puts his fingers to Jack’s lips. “Really? Can I tell you about this incredibly stupid thing my boyfriend did a few weeks ago – maybe we can compare notes?”

Jack nods nervously.

“My boyfriend Skyped me from Las Vegas, after he played a very important hockey game against the Aces, where he scored the winning goal and then he was photographed by paparazzi eating steak at the Pallozzo with the captain of the opposing team. Who is also,” he drops his voice to a stage whisper, “his secret ex-boyfriend. Secret, of course, because everyone knows there aren’t any gay boys who play hockey.”

Jack mouth twists into a frown, but he just says, “And what did he say?”

A look of terrible sadness crosses Bitty’s face. “He said he wanted me to ‘feel free’ to date other people because he didn’t want to ruin my senior year. And you know what?”

“What?” Jack asks, sliding  his arms more firmly around Bitty’s backside and pulling him closer to him.

“He ruined my senior year. Well, he ruined the last three weeks for sure. And also he wants me to have sex with strangers.”

“I don’t-“ Jack starts to protest, but Bitty interrupts. “This isn’t about YOU, Mr. Baseball MVP. This is about MY BOYFRIEND. Who plays HOCKEY and wants to fuck! puck! bunnies! while I date other boys. Because he can take a puck bunny to dinner. In PUBLIC. And I could date OTHER BOYS IN PUBLIC. But not him. And also because he’s probably still in love with his ex-boyfriend. Probably he wants to fuck puck bunnies AND his hockey star ex-boyfriend at the same time and probably he thinks I’m a…boring pie-baking monogamist.”

Bitty shakes his head and his ears flop back and forth, and he is, without a doubt, the saddest boy in a bunny suit Jack has ever seen.


	2. Here Comes the Spark Before the Dark, Come a Little Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack explains his idiocy. Smut ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow I managed to delete the last paragraph of this chapter when I posted this last night. It is fixed now.

Jack slides his hands up the length of Bitty’s body and tries to pull him closer, resting his nose against Bittle’s, smudging the eyeliner used to draw on his rabbit nose and whiskers.  “I don’t want you to have sex with strangers. Unless you want to have sex with strangers, which I hope that you don’t, actually” he clarifies.  “And I don’t think you’re a boring, pie-baking monogamist.” 

            Bittle narrows his eyes and glares at Jack.  “Well, speak for yourself, Mr. World Series.  But I’ll have you know, I am legendary in the field of pie-baking.  And that IS what my hockey star boyfriend wants, because that is what he told me himself in his very own words.”

            “Sometimes his words come out of his mouth wrong,” Jack sighs.  “Can I be myself again, Bits, please?  I need to talk to you.” 

            Bitty wiggles in his lap, which is decidedly distracting.  “You can be you, I guess,” he says, twitching his nose.  “But I’m still going to be a puck bunny for a while.” 

            Jack pulls off the baseball cap and puts his hands on Bittle’s shoulders, where Jack can feel the tension in his small frame.  He strokes his fingers up and down Bitty’s bare arms, the skin beneath his fingertips silky and warm.

            “You hurt me, Jack,” Bitty says, reaching out to straighten the placket of the Tigers jersey, thumbing the top button.  He seems to catch himself, realizing what he’s just said.  “I mean, you know, you hurt Bitty.  This bunny is perfectly fine.”

            “I hate that I hurt you,” Jack says, splaying his hands across Bittle’s back and crushing him in a tight hug.  He hides his face in short blond hair and continues to talk. 

            “This is what happened - I met Parse for dinner after the game.  I told him…I told him that I didn’t want to carry around any old anxiety about our past.  I told him that I was feeling happy for the first time in such a long time.  I said that…I was feeling so happy because I finally knew what it was like to really love somebody and be loved by somebody.  I said that I couldn’t wait until next year when you could move to Providence with me and we could have so much more time to be together.  I said that I was thinking of coming out after you graduate, after I’ve had two good seasons to prove myself.” 

            Jack moves his head to bury his face in Bittle’s neck.  “In hindsight, I know that I hurt Parse by saying that.  When I said I finally knew what it was like to love someone.  I didn’t mean that to belittle what Parse and I were together.  It’s just that…I was an addict when I was with him.  And what he was to me was part of that addiction, part of that compulsion.  I’m not blaming him.  But what I felt for him, what I felt when I was with him – I don’t know if any of it was real.  So what I was trying to say was that I was happy and in love and sober and playing great hockey and he just…got angry.” 

            Bitty angles his face to catch Jack’s eyes.  “He got angry?” 

            “He said that I was ‘buying into heteronormative bullshit’ if I didn’t realize that monogamy was ‘for straight people who are kidding themselves’ and he said that the longer I tried to make my relationship with you into a ‘Disney-fied happy ending’ I would just end up hurting myself in the end.  He said it wasn’t fair of me to ask you to hide for me and to wait for me.  He said he wasn’t fair to ask anyone to ‘piss away a prime year of fucking for the sake of a romantic impossibility.’”

            Jack winds his arms even tighter around Bitty, until Bitty protests with a squeak, “You gotta let me breathe, Jack!”  He reluctantly loosens his embrace, and  Bittle skootches back until he is balancing on the edge of Jack’s knees.  He carefully takes Jack’s face in his hands.  “Do you want to be with me?” 

            “Yes,” Jack says solemnly.

            “Do you want to be with other people and me at the same time?” Bitty tries to make his face neutral with this, but fails spectacularly. 

            “No, I don’t.  I really, really don’t,” Jack answers.

            “Do you love me?” Bitty continues.

            “More than you could possibly imagine,” Jack murmurs, dropping his forehead onto Bittle’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar vanilla and almond extract scent of him. 

“I love you, too,” Bitty says.  “And I don’t want to be with anyone else, and I don’t feel like I’m wasting a year of prime fuckability.  If anything, I feel like we wasted two years of time when we could have been fucking like rabbits in your room across the hall.”  Jack laughs at this and reaches up fondly to grasp the ears of Bitty’s costume, and he leans forward to kiss his smudged nose.

  “So please don’t ever take relationship advice from Kent Parson again,” he says slowly.  “And please don’t think you are asking me to throw anything away.  I love being Jack Zimmermann’s secret boyfriend.  And when you’re ready, I’ll love being your boyfriend in public.  I’m not even out to my parents, yet.  I can hardly expect you to be out to the whole of the world and _Hockey Night in Canada_.”     

            “I’m so sorry,” Jack says, leaning in to kiss him softly.  He pulls away again, “I’m such an idiot.  I missed you so much.  I kept wanting to call you and take it all back, but I was afraid that…Can you forgive me?  Please?” 

            “So you don’t want me to sleep with strangers?” Bitty asks, his eyes regaining some of their usual sparkle.  “And you don’t think I’m boring?  And it doesn’t bother you that I’ve only ever been in _your_ pants?” He emphasizes this last point by sliding forward and gently humping Jack’s thigh. 

            “ _Mère de Dieu_ ,” Jack breathes, watching the outline of Bitty’s dick as it becomes noticeably hard in the tight crotch of his costume.  “I definitely, definitely don’t think you’re boring.  Have you seen yourself in this get-up?”

            “Why Mr. Jack Zimmermann, are you suggesting that there may be a puck bunny in this Haus this evening you want to become better acquainted with?”  Bittle drawls as he runs his hand along the seam of Jack’s now terribly wrinkled his pants.  Bitty’s face blushes in satisfaction to find him already hard and aching. 

            Jack crushes his mouth against Bittle’s and kisses him deeply, his tongue gently exploring, his teeth nipping softly at Bittle’s lips.  “There is a puck bunny in this room I’d like to know very, very well,” he murmurs, moving his lips down his neck. 

            Bittle moans quietly as he unashamedly rides Jack’s thigh.  “When I was a frog, I…uh…um…” he breaks off, unable to keep his train of thought as Jack unzips the back of his rabbit costume and begins to pull it off of his shoulders.

            “When I was a frog…I would get so jealous, so out-of-my-head jealous,” Bittle says as he assists Jack in pulling the costume down and off. 

            “Jealous of who?” Jack asks, as he lifts Bitty by the hips, putting him down on the floor so that he can roll the bunny suit down over his hips.  It falls to the floor in a puddle and Bitty stands before him clad only in a pair of short, electric purple, form-fitting boxers.  He is small and thin, but noticeably strong, his former figure skater’s body having transformed into the long muscled physique of a sprinter.   Bitty is tiny next to his teammates, but he is still a three-year-veteran of one of the toughest NCAA Hockey teams in their division and he has the pecs and abs to prove it. 

            Jack stares appreciatively while Bitty continues, reaching to run his fingers through Jack’s hair, “I was jealous at the parties, whenever anyone would ask where you had disappeared to, Shitty or Holster would say that you were off getting your dick sucked by one of the puck bunnies.” 

            Jack pulls Bitty back onto the bed, laughing.  “That was, well.  That was almost never true,” he says.  “They were covering for me.  Covering up for the fact that I was hiding in my room because I didn’t want to deal with the stress of so many people, so much noise, so many things to make me anxious.”

            Bitty pulls himself over Jack until he is straddling him, and lowers himself down gently, rubbing their hardened cocks together through three layers of fabric. 

            Jack reaches to grab his hips, pulling them together more firmly.  They are both breathing heavily, Bitty’s mouth hovering over Jack’s as he leans in with hungry kisses.

            “All those times I thought you were having sex with puck bunnies you were back in your room by yourself?” he asks, incredulously.

            Jack gently grips Bitty’s hips to stop their motion, even though it’s almost physically painful to do so.  “Remember last year when I asked you how many people you’d been with, and you said you hadn’t really been with anyone beyond making out, and then I said I’d been with three people?” 

            Bitty nods somewhat unsteadily, distracted by overwhelming lust and tremendous relief and too much cheap rum earlier in the evening.  “Yes, I remember.   Parse and Camilla and…uh, actually who was the other one?”    

            “Did you think I discounted a dozen or so partners?” Jack asks.

            Bitty blushes at this.  “I thought that…maybe you didn’t think that counted?” he squeaks, embarrassed. 

            “How many times have you heard Shitty’s speech on “ _The Importance of Safe Sexual Practices and Open and Affirming Honesty Among Sexual Partners_?” 

            Bitty nods.  “At least five times.  He likes to do that one in a pirate voice when he’s been drinking Captain Morgan's.” 

            “Exactly.  I've heard it at least a dozen. I didn’t leave anyone out.  So, there was only one puck bunny,"   Towards the end of your freshman season, my junior year, after one of the away games.  She was…very persuasive.  But mostly…this is so embarrassing,” Jack turns his head to hide it in his pillow.

            “What’s so embarrassing?  Ransom and Holster take those girls up on their offers all the time.  Frequently at the same time.  One time shouldn’t be embarrassing.”

            “What’s embarrassing is why I didn’t walk away from her when she offered, like I’ve walked away from every other post-game offer,” Jack says. 

            Bittle experimentally starts rubbing himself against Jack again.  Jack’s dick is still very interested in this activity and he lets out a low groan before he continues.  “It was the way she offered.  It was her…accent.  She sounded like you.  Almost exactly like you.  And she was small and blonde and brown-eyed and the way she talked…it was just like you.  And at that time,  I was just starting to realize how much I....how much I wanted you.  And then she got down on her knees for me and I let myself pretend it was you and it was...” 

            Bitty raises himself up so he can unbuckle Jack’s belt and unzip his fly.  He reaches his small fingers inside Jack’s pants and he cups Jack’s hardness in the palm of his hand through his boxers.  “What was it?” he whispers, enthralled by the look of arousal on Jack’s face. 

            “It was so, so hot.  My god it was hot.  And then when I was, um, returning the favor...she kept saying 'Zimmermann Zimmermann' and I asked her to call me Jack instead, because I wanted to hear her say my first name, the way you say it, in your accent."  Jack is blushing so hard at this admission he is almost purple.  "I felt like I couldn’t look you in the face for weeks after, because every time I looked at your mouth, I thought about how imagined it had been you on your knees for me and not her.” 

            Bitty moves down Jack’s body until his mouth is ghosting over Jack’s cotton clad cock.  “I’m not sure if I’m incredibly turned on right now or incredibly jealous,” he murmurs.  He presses his lips against the cotton, and mouths along the length of him, the sensation a teasing promise of more to come. 

            “A little of both is okay,” Jack teases. 

            Bitty turns his face to look up at him, his mouth still hovering over his boxers.  “Mr.  Zimmermann,” he drawls, dragging out the name, “I do believe I’d like to suck your dick.”  Jack’s dick twitches noticeably at this declaration. 

            “Such a filthy mouth,” Jack whispers, his pupils huge and fixed on Bitty’s face.  He reaches down to open his suit pants the rest of the way and drag them down far enough to free himself from the confines of his underwear. 

            Bitty leans over and takes him in his mouth, his lips tender.  He licks around the head and then moves lower, running his tongue down his shaft, and Jack forgets how to speak English.  “ _Mon Dieu_ ,” he whispers.  “ _Mon coeur_ , _mon p’tit chou_ , _mon chouchou_.”    

            Bitty licks and mouths back up the length of him and with his fingers gently pushes his foreskin back, tracing circles through the pre-ejaculate dripping from him.  Jack continues a steady of stream of French profanity interspersed with declarations of devotion while Bitty mouths and sucks at just the head of him, teasing him with slow strokes of his hand against Jack’s aching balls. 

            “ _Mon lapin, mon p’tit lapin_ ,” Jack moans.  “ _Je veux…je veux_.” 

            Bitty pulls himself off of Jack’s throbbing dick and begins kissing his way up Jack’s neck to his mouth.  “Ilove that I can make you forget your second language.  Tell me what you're saying, please?” 

            Jack wraps his hands around the back of Bitty’s head and plunders his mouth with his tongue for a long time.  “My heart, my cabbage, my rabbit,” he says, kissing Bitty’s nose, “I want you.  I want you to be inside of me, I want to be inside of you, I want you.  I just want you so much.”

            Bitty slides his boxers down so that they are both naked, and he pushes their cocks together, and the pressure and the friction is so satisfying that he almost comes immediately.  Bitty bites his lip and thinks about hockey scores for a second. 

            “I want you to be inside of me, and I want to be inside of you, but we’ve been apart for almost three weeks and I don’t think either of us can wait that long,” Bittle says. 

            Jack flips Bitty over onto his back, suddenly, and he finds himself covered completely by his former captain.  “Well, we’ll have time enough for a second round, then,” he says with determination.  Jack is still partially clothed and Bitty starts unbuttoning the Tigers jersey while Jack kicks his pants to the end of the bed, until they are blissfully naked and sandwiched together.  Their six inch height difference makes frotting their cocks together and kissing at the same time somewhat difficult, but Jack curls his back and shoulders and attacks Bitty’s mouth while rocking his hips against him. 

            For an indefinable period of time, which may be seconds or may be hours, Bitty’s whole world is nothing by the weight of the boy he loves pressing against him, the slide of their lips against each other, the delicious friction between them.  He moans when Jack wraps his hand around both of them and then he is gone, his head explodes, fireworks burst and entire stars and universes fold in upon themselves inside of him and he collapses in a pile of contentment beneath Jack, who continues to push against him for just a few seconds more and then he follows him in a climax that leaves both of them sticky.   For a moment Jack allows the entire weight of himself to rest on Bitty, but he quickly pulls up, afraid of crushing him. 

            If he is honest with himself, Bitty would admit that he loves those moments, when Jack allows Bitty to bear all of his weight.  It feels like trust.  It feels like reliance.  He doubts that Jack allows himself the comfort of placing all of himself – all of his burdens, all of his hopes - on another person very often.  Bitty likes to be the one who can hold up Jack Zimmermann, even if it’s only for a few seconds, even in the most literal sense.

            Jack wipes up the mess between them with the tail of the Tigers jersey, and maneuvers them so they are spooned together, Jack the big spoon, Bittle the small spoon.

            “I can’t believe you just defiled the World Series MVP Jersey like that. I’m pretty sure that’s a crime in Detroit,” Bittle teases.

            “I guess they’ll arrest me next time I have to get my ass handed to me by the Wings,” Jack says sleepily.

            Bitty pulls the comforter over both of them and snuggles down into the curve of Jack’s body. He is almost asleep when Jack whispers, “I thought I lost you. I was so afraid I had.”

            Bitty turns his head to kiss Jack on the mouth. “I was going to do something stupid tonight. And then I was going to call you and tell you what I’d done and tell you to come back to me now that I wasn’t such a boring monogamist. I’m…really glad that didn’t happen.”

            Jack wraps himself more tightly around Bitty’s body. “Let’s never make this mistake again. Whatever happens, I love you. Never forget that. Don’t let me forget that.”

            “I love you, Jack. So, so much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some French translations (I am a native English speaker with a degree in French Literature. (Not a particularly useful degree, btw. I do not know enough about the differences between French and Quebecois to say if these phrases are accurately used by a native of Montreal.)
> 
> Mere de Dieu - mother of God  
> Mon Coeur - my heart  
> Mon chou, mon chouchou - literally, my cabbage (a term of endearment)  
> Mon lapin - my rabbit, my little rabbit (I had a friend who used this as a term of endearment for her boyfriend, but I don't know if it's common. It was fitting for the story, though.)
> 
> *I do realize that by giving Jack only three other sexual partners in his life (one of which was a one night stand) is an unlikely scenario for a 25-year-old man, especially one who looks like Jack. I have this idea that Jack and Parse continued their physical relationship even after Parse was drafted and Jack started at Samwell and that he didn't seek out other sexual relationships because of Parse. I am curious where Ngozi takes their back story.*


End file.
